COPA Founder John Bogie To Hall of Fame

COPA Co-Founder John Bogie will be inducted into the Canadian Aviation Hall of Fame in 2018.

He is one of four inductees and will be joined by Gen. Paul D. Manson, O.C., C.M.M., C.D., Dr. John Maris and Dr. Dwight Gregory Powell, O.C. at a ceremony June 7, 2018, in the Sunwest Aviation hangar at Calgary International Airport.

Bogie and Margaret Carson founded COPA in 1952 and has been active in the organization since its inception. Below is the Hall of Fame’s biography of Bogie.

Born into an aviation family in the United States, John Bogie has made his home in Canada since the early1950s, following service in the United States Navy, work as an airport operator, and as a very young charter pilot. In Canada, he quickly made a name for his charter and resource exploration work for Laurentian Air Services and Spartan Air Services, including the flight that identified the major iron deposit at Gagnon, Quebec.

Complementing his civilian flying, in 1952 Bogie became, with Margaret Carson, a co-founder of the Canadian Owners and Pilots Association (COPA), serving as its first President and Chairman. Since that time, he has been an unswerving supporter of COPA, seeing it grow from modest beginnings to some 17,000 members.

He served in most of COPA’s executive capacities and continues as an honorary director and life member. He still attends as many COPA events as he can, now into his 90s. His COPA accomplishments include simplified medicals for pilots and aviation liability group insurance now used by commercial carriers.

John helped to create the Experimental Aircraft Association Canada organization, as well as a civilian pilot group for Search and Rescue as an adjunct to the military. Another entity he helped bring into being was the Canadian Business Aircraft Association (CBAA), first as an arm of COPA and then as a distinct entity. His Laurentian Air Services career ultimately took him to the presidency, to many initiatives to diversify its operations and to embrace the bilingual nature of the environment in which his company operated.

A subsequent stroke of initiative allowed him to buy a large consignment of ex-US Army Beavers which were rebuilt and put onto the Canadian market. This constituted the largest single aircraft purchase of its kind in Canada and made Laurentian the Canadian centre for Beaver activity. John Bogie has continued to support Canadian aviation long after his retirement in 1992. He continues to enjoy the respect and affection of the aviation community to this day.

Manson is a former Chief of Defense Staff and was in charge of implementing the CF-18 into RCAF service. Maris is a test pilot and well known innovator in electronic and other aviation products and Powell is an expert in medical evacuation services and the founder of STARS.